TiVo Says It Deserves Billions In Damages In Motorola DVR Patent Lawsuit

Los Angeles – TiVo Inc. told a Texas federal court Monday that its damages for its digital video recording technology patent infringement claims against Motorola Mobility Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. may amount to billions of dollars, due to the vast scope of the alleged infringement.

“Motorola’s massive production of infringing DVRs dwarfs the numbers of accused products at issue in TiVo’s previous cases, TiVo said in a reply in support of its motion to consolidate the case with a related one involving Cisco Systems for pretrial purposes.

“TiVo’s damages claim is likely to run into the billions of dollars,” the motion said. “TiVo seeks its day in court as quickly as possible under a schedule that allows this case to be fully, fairly and efficiently adjudicated.”

Adjusting the schedules in the Motorola and Cisco cases by a matter of months would serve all of those goals, the company said.

In opposing TiVo’s motion, Motorola and Time Warner are ignoring the fact that consolidation of the cases would prevent duplicative Markman hearings, depositions, document discovery and other pretrial proceedings, according to TiVo.

Motorola argued in its opposition to TiVo’s motion that it has its own patent claims against TiVo that have nothing to do with Cisco, and that the motion came too late as the judge has already split the two apart for separate proceedings. Motorola is further along in the process than Cisco, it said.

The court has expressly stated that administering both cases will allow it to coordinate them efficiently, which is precisely what TiVo is requesting in its motion, TiVo said.

“Instead of discussing the practical issues that favor consolidation, Motorola repeats its unfounded claim that TiVo is seeking to delay this case,” the reply said. “This charge is wrong and makes no logical sense.”

TiVo’s high expectations for damages are based in part on earlier multimillion dollar patent settlements to its advantage.

In September TiVo reached a deal to settle its DVR patent infringement lawsuit against Verizon Communications, under which Verizon agreed to pay $250.4 million and enter a mutual patent licensing arrangement.

The company also previously struck deals with Dish Network for $600 million and with AT&T for $215 million.